It had been months of itching, burning, freezing, tingling mana build-up. With a larger space to fill, it had taken more time for the raging river within to build to breaking point. It still wasn’t quite there, but it was becoming impossible to hide his discomfort.
Months of constant targeting from Guan Ah Bo. Bo was eleven, and the oldest in Dan’s class. Dan, eight years old and stressed in ways that others his age could not understand, was struggling. While combat is by no means frowned upon in the Guan family, or the Shin empire at large, there were rules. Rules which Dan was trying very hard to follow, such as: Don’t break the nose of another child.
He failed. “By dose!” Bo squealed as blood erupted from his misshapen face. “I’ll geh yew fuh dis.” He took off, dragging his entourage with him, leaving Dan to calm down alone. He looked down and saw blood on his knuckles, surprised that he hadn’t noticed. Without thinking, he tried to rub it off on the grass at his feet. When that didn’t work, he ran to the local water source. It had been on his hands for at least a minute, but every second more, now that it had been noticed, was torture.
It wasn’t like him to lash out. Dan was worried he would get into trouble when Bo ran to find someone to fix his face. He hoped that maybe Hana would see Bo running through the halls blubbering like an idiot. She had thrown the shell of an eaten crab at Bo when he had tipped Dan’s bowl of soup over. He had done it intentionally, knowing there would be no seconds given.
Dan had liked Hana’s smile when they caught each other’s eye. Bo had looked around confused, hoping the culprit would speak up or one of the other children would say who it had been. None did, but that was because they hadn’t noticed. Only Dan, constantly aware of more than most, had tracked Hana as she swiftly grabbed and launched the shellfish in one motion.
There was a single stream, one offshoot of the massive Tzenche river, that sourced the water for the orphans and their caretakers. The men and women who lived in the buildings surrounding the orphanage made a living as caretakers for the boys and girls displaced by misadventure or misfortune. Running between their houses and the orphanage was the small flow of water. Dan used this, eventually nearly scraping his own skin off, to remove the blood.
“I think you’re in trouuuble.” The words came from a sing-song voice, originating behind Dan. He swivelled and saw himself face-to-face with Hana herself. She had a round face, with a small nose. She was short, even for a girl of only nine. A scar split her left eyebrow and she was missing some teeth that were yet to grow in. Dan thought she was the prettiest girl in the world. The storm inside him pulsed.
“Well,” Dan puffed his chest, all bravado, “he shouldn’t have pulled my hair.” Dan was proud of his long dark hair. It wasn’t unkept, and as long as he promised to brush it, the length was tolerated. If he were less well-behaved, the adults may have been less lenient. With a pang of worry and a nervous twist of his hair, Dan deflated as he thought maybe a haircut would be his punishment.
“Who? No one should pull anyone’s hair.” Hana had no further clarification to that point, simply leaving the statement in the air with a sense of wisdom. “I heard the Lizard was looking for you.” Now, her words carried the stink of pity, and rightly so.
“No! I only hit Bo one time. Once! The Lizard can’t get me for that!” Dan was practically screaming, such was his outrage. The Lizard was the name given to Guan Cao Fan, and having her looking for you always meant you had done something really bad. Like when Yun and Wei accidentally started a fire in their room, they’d come back from their talk with the Lizard weeping and inconsolable. It was an accident, but they definitely never played with fire again. Desperate, he turned to Hana and asked “What do I do?”
“I’d just run until tomorrow.” She said, sniffing. Hana was rough in a way, not brutish but solid, and Dan didn’t have any doubt she’d be able to avoid the Lizard’s clutches. He was not so sure of his own chances.
“I can’t run…” Physically, he could, but knowing that he was wanted, even by someone as scary as the Lizard, somehow made Dan feel stuck to the spot. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go.” There was no safe haven for an orphan, no sanctuary interested in taking them in. They were already there, and for all it’s faults, it could always have been worse.
“Mmm,” Hana made a ponderous noise. “I don’t think there’s much chance anyway, here she comes.” Her words turned Dan’s steely resolve to face the music into wet paper. He suddenly wished more than anything that he had just run away, into the wilderness surrounding the Guan lands if needs be. However, legs shaking, Dan rose the small embankment by the stream and looked to his pursuer.
Taller than most women, the Lizard - or Guan Shi Ling - was the head caretaker of the orphanage. She always wore, somewhere in her outfit, a fabric of strange, scaly design. Some days her shoes, others her skirt or a patch on her shirt. It was strange, it looked strange and no one in all of the children she had looked after had ever found out what it was. She wore her hair in a tight bun, as though she could hold the colour in if the hair could just be pulled closer together. This made her eyes and brows seem in constant alert, while doing nothing to hide the impending head of white hair.
It was her movement, coupled with the strange material in her clothes, that had garnered her the nickname of Lizard. It was certainly graceful, but also stochastic. Sometimes her strides were long, slow things that moved her curiously from door to door in the dormitories. Other times, she zipped like a snake between the children performing their stances and forms, inspecting and critiquing. Her eyes were sharp, dark and seemingly paired in the back of her head.
“Guan Ah Dan!” Her voice seemed to pierce his bones and root Dan to the spot. She was angry. Angry in a way that seemed too much even for hurting Bo. Bo wasn’t special, and others got into fights all the time. “Here. Now.”
She had been stalking towards him with intent but upon actually finding her quarry, would expend no more energy. Dan looked towards Hana’s sympathetic face for encouragement but she couldn’t help him now. No one could. It was with the mood of a man on the way to his execution that Dan approached the Lizard.
“Respected Aunt.” Dan bowed at the appropriate distance. Every elder who wasn’t something specific was an aunt or uncle in the Guan family. Giving the Lizard every respectful courtesy now could soften any potential blows later. It was difficult to ignore the raging tempest inside to do so, but Dan managed all the same.
“Don’t ‘Respected Aunt’ me, young man. I am in no mood.” Oh dear. It was that bad then. Whatever foul mood the Lizard had been caught in today, it had been Dan’s misfortune to receive the brunt of it, it would seem. She spun around, leaving Dan to trail after her like a masochistic worm following a bird.
“Your student is desperately stricken, Teacher.” Trying a different tack, Dan relinquished himself to whatever the Lizard would do. Just as they were all one large family, so too were they one large school. There was always something new to learn from one more experienced than yourself, Dan’s elders were fond of saying. Usually when they did something that made no sense.
“If my lessons were enough, you wouldn’t need to see Park Man-Shik until you were older.” The two had begun walking at this point, and while Dan could no longer see her face, the Lizard almost sounded… caring. Dan didn’t know what or who Park Man-Shik was, but it didn’t sound promising. “It doesn’t make any sense and,” she stopped walking and faced Dan, “I tried.” The look she gave Dan was difficult to discern, though he thought he was a glint he had seen commonly in the eyes of adults his whole life. Pity.
“Your student…” Dan struggled to figure out exactly how to respond. “Your student thanks you for your consideration.” Dan leant on his upbringing, politeness and careful wording on the curriculum from day one. Still, Dan was confused about where this had started and where it was heading. He had expected to turn left when they arrived at the main school building for the orphanage, but instead they continued straight.
They continued and Dan began to feel nervous and out-of-place. They breached the boulevard that ran from the main branch family’s quarters to the wider world. It was a short distance from the orphanage, but what would have been the point in coming here before? With no money to spend for themselves and no parents to spend for them, there was nothing to do here but people watch or steal.
Dan had never stolen, and didn’t want anyone to think he would, so he had stayed away. Once they reached the actual bustle of the road, the Lizard took Dan’s wrist in a solid grasp and hauled him through the crowd. The buzz of noise was making it harder and harder to focus on his energy. Up, down, front, back, Dan chanted in his mind. Someone stepped on his foot, but because his shoes were thin and the Lizard’s pace never changed, his shoe fell off.
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Another distraction, another thread being pulled from the tight ball of yarn he was currently wrestling with. Each step now had to be accounted for, a focus on the feet of others almost as paramount as keeping his own attention. Each person was another distraction, and Dan had never been surrounded by so many people all at once. Especially not so many people who simply didn’t care that he was in their way.
His face was slapped with a fish someone held casually, causing him to bite his lip. Dan’s core rippled with pain. He was so focused on his inner self, letting the soon-to-be elderly women to guide their path, that the pain was magnified. Dan felt as though clawed had raked through his insides and he thought back to the strange room, wishing he had Elders Yaya and Baba to guide him again.
Instead he bit down on his lip. The physical pain of his mortal body gave Dan a crimson marker to centre himself upon. From that focal point, he felt the rest of his small body, concentrating on the boundary that was his skin. Within that skin was his core, but it wasn’t his whole being. It was just a fraction of the whole, wasn’t it? Important, like the heart or the brain but separate.
It was an intense tightrope to walk. Dan was currently avoiding every potential contact with others, every dip in the well-walked path, every earthly distraction. If it had begun to rain, he might have been able to stay dry in his current state. At the same time, he had a lens to his inner self and inspected every motion of his barely controlled mana.
Then, to his delight and frustration, they were outside the crowd. The desperation calmed, and it was much easier to hold onto his core. Without the stimulus of evading the stampede, Dan could feel something slipping away, like having a word on the tip of his tongue.
The hurried pace of the matron continued, and Dan could finally look around again. He hadn’t seen this place before, but he felt as though he knew the direction they had travelled to get here. The boulevard was north of the orphanage, and they had joined the traffic heading east for a short while before cutting across the lane more to the north. The destination had not yet been reached, but their speed slowed to a standstill in the winding alleys this side of the busy road.
Now, the Lizard stopped. She turned her wide eyed gaze around and Dan noticed that she seemed nervous. That made him uncomfortable in a way he didn’t fully understand. “May your student know where we are going, honoured one?” Dan really was laying the courtesy on thick at this point, but it seemed to remind Guan Shi Ling that she was in control.
“You will know soon enough.” She was dismissive, but her words weren’t sharpened like usual. They began to walk again. Dan was very self-conscious of his lost slipper, but considering the Lizard had not reprimanded him for losing it, he hoped it would be of little consequence.
Dan did, in fact, know their destination quite quickly. Another three alleys, left, right and then the second right. The mental map in Dan’s head was helping him control his mana, so he kept track of it all. The journey’s end came outside of a quaint building. Most of the structure was a bulbous stone ball, sporting a smoky chimney. A much less permanent structure seemed attached to the stone, a ramshackle hut with a shell. It looked almost like a large snail.
From within a clattering that, coupled with the feeling inside, took Dan right back to the dark room again. Something about the building held a similar energy. The same earlier anxiety returned when the Lizard stopped to take a deep breath, released Dan’s hand and smoothed her clothes out. She reached out a slightly shaky hand and either decided not to be scared anymore or simply hid it very well. She pushed the door with confidence and stepped inside, not needed to turn to Dan for him to follow.
They stepped inside and it was like being slapped with the fish all over again.
Within the confines of the small front room, Dan immediately felt the scorching heat. Cooped in with the Lizard and the man who had not yet turned from his work, Dan had never experienced heat like this. The man was raising and slamming a hammer again and again, the reverberations making it feel as though he were battering Dan’s skull. It fried his concentration and increased the spikes of discomfort and pain. It was similar to being in the throngs of people earlier, and Dan didn’t shy away from the challenge of it. It felt important to figure out and he was sure he was so close.
After what felt like minutes, the man finally turned. He was obscured by a welcome desk that felt anything but welcoming. He loomed over the wood. A large, black, unkept beard nearly brushed Dan’s face as it fell onto the customer side of the smithy. The heat was being belched out from behind him by the glowing hot materials in the forge. Looking into the man’s face, illuminated from behind and soot-covered, Dan could make out nothing but his eyes. They were dry, irritated and sore but they held a happy glint. After another moment of inspection, teeth were visible in his large smile.
“Now, now,” the scruffy man turned his attention to the Lizard, “Shi Ling, what is this tadpole doing in my shop?” A long, slender hand gestured towards Dan, surprising him. They looked like the fingers of a harp player, Dan had expected digits as wide as his arm.
“Honoured Teacher,” the Lizard’s voice was strained, “a letter with guidance from the main house arrived today. Your student thought you knew more of the situation than herself, and can only apologise.”
She may have actually grown a forked tongue and shed her skin, Dan would have expected that just as much. He gaped at the woman, then the man who was clearly more important than his surroundings suggested. Once more, Dan felt that familiar nostalgia about the situation. Common sense disappeared without warning, and the strictest, scariest person you knew could be just like a child.
“I do,” the man said, calming, “and it does not surprise me that you are in the dark. You may go.”
Clearly unused to being dismissed, there was a clear hesitation to follow the command. She looked at Dan with that emotion he hated so much, pity, and left without saying another word. Dan watched the door for a moment, half hoping that the Lizard would come back. Mostly he was just confused and hoping for an explanation. Before he could ask anything, he would have to say hello.
Turning to the blacksmith with the easy smile and happy eyes, Dan bowed. “I am Guan Ah Dan, Honoured Teacher.” Raising his head from the bow, Dan looked him in the eyes once more and saw the smile within. He was not used to that reaction to his presence, and once again bemoaned the fact that he was wearing only one shoe and had someone else’s blood on his knuckles.
Dan couldn’t know that his new teacher loved the fact that he was rough, like an unsmelted ore. He didn’t know, and wouldn’t for a while, that this benefaction had been orchestrated by two worried elders as they would never admit it. Whatever fate had brought him to Park Man-Shik, they would say, it was nothing to do with them.
“Well mannered, aren’t you? What is a man like me supposed to do with a cub like you?” The man pondered. Dan stood in the blistering heat wondering what was going on. He leapt at a concept he recognised though, and saw opportunity. Dan could be helpful to anyone, if they wanted his help.
“This one,” Dan said, using the lowest form of self identifier, “would be very pleased to be called your student, Honoured Teacher.” Dan had seen a glint of possibility here for a chance. A chance that most of the children he had grown up with wouldn’t receive. Just apprenticing to a blacksmith was massively valuable, but for some reason this man was more important than just that. Dan could feel it in the way that the Lizard had acted.
“I suppose you would, that would make sense. Except you’re about to break and then you won’t even be able to swing a hammer. I don’t need a broken student.” He raised the side of his welcome desk and stepped into the same side as Dan. Park Man-Shik’s words were serious, but Dan only focused on one thing.
“Do you know what’s happening to me?” Dan asked, finally allowing himself to worry. His concentration still had not slipped, but the mana within his core felt like it was bubbling. As though the heat from the furnace had boiled it. “It’s my mana, it’s not stopping like it normally does. What do I do?” The final question was shrill, scared.
“You’re doing it, cub. Figuring out which way is in and which way is out.”
“It’s all in though. It hurts.” Tears were in Dan’s eyes. Talking about the problem had relaxed him and something slipped a little more. Now the spikes of pain weren’t stopped or being controlled. It was like a chestnut’s spiky shell had replaced Dan’s core and rolled around inside him.
“No one can say what mana feels like to someone else. As a guess, is it like a ball inside? You can feel your mana at the boundary?” The blacksmith was kneeling to be near Dan’s level. Dan himself had doubled over and was trying to sit in a meditative state. He nodded, not trusting his control to last if he said another word. Dan felt that if he opened his mouth, all the energy would explode out. Angrily. “Okay then. Your mana is trying to break into the triangle stage and all of it is pressed against your core. You have to let it into your core, it’s not there yet.”
The young boy didn’t answer the man, his small eyes clenched tightly with pain and focus. When he had received the letter, removed the unique wax sealing and understood who it was that sent it, Park Man-Shik had been at least a little suspicious. There was not a teacher on the planet that would not have snapped up the child they had described, so why send the boy to him?
The answer to that question would be forthcoming when it mattered, the blacksmith expected. For now, he was given one of the finest raw materials on the face of Jaia, and he would shape it into something mighty, as was his way. The child definitely could not hear him, but the buzz of his mana was changing into something new.
The man smiled, put up the sign saying that his smithy was closed, and sat quietly while the boy genius before him broke through a barrier it takes most two decades to smash.